Mortars in Halftracks

[Probus]

It seems like mortars in the back of halftracks are very inaccurate.  Is that true?  Do you have to dismount the mortars in order to make them more accurate?

[George MC]

I've noticed they are more accurate in direct fire (As you say - "no **** Sherlock...") and I have noticed that used indirectly they take a while to zero in, but not tested it and this is very much an impression...

[domfluff]

Obviously things can be broken, and there's plenty of examples of this sort of thing, especially with things like the mortar halftracks, but logically it's a lot harder to operate a mortar from a confined space like an armoured vehicle, so you'd imagine that accuracy would go down and rate of fire would decrease.

[Probus]

I have 6 in the game I'm playing.  Previously I called in a smoke mission and it was so spread out as to be unusable.  I might try dismounting 3 of them and see if they are any more accurate than the other 3.  Or if I can even tell a difference. 

[Dynaman216]

If anything mortars in a halftrack should be more accurate since the firing platform is more stable over a longer time frame.  Setting them up may (or may not) take longer since the vehicle may have to move a bit.

[chuckdyke]

I found on map artillery assets more accurate in the direct fire mode. In such a fashion that they have LOS but the enemy doesn't have an LOF. Analyzing and selecting fire positions makes or break your game. 

[Erwin]

CM is "The Game of Determining LOS".

[Artkin]

Yeah accuracy should be much better but rof should be lower

[Ultradave]

23 hours ago, Dynaman216 said:

If anything mortars in a halftrack should be more accurate since the firing platform is more stable over a longer time frame.  Setting them up may (or may not) take longer since the vehicle may have to move a bit.

True for direct lay firing, however, if it's indirect fire from a fire mission request, it's likely to be quite a bit less accurate. With the mortar on the ground it's much easier to accurately set deflection (the L/R direction of fire to the target). Not that easy to do in a halftrack as you need a reference line set out and that's not going to happen in a track. You are going to determine as best you can the compass direction the tube is pointing at "zero", which would be either straight forward or back, depending on how the mortar is mounted. So the direction in that case is going to be a good approximation. On the ground, you can be pretty exact. Elevation should be the same either way, roughly, because either way, you are estimating distance to the target. 

For US halftracks, I'm pretty sure that the 81mm mortars were designed to be dismounted, normally. In a pinch of course, you do what you have to do though, right?

And yeah, stable ground is always an issue. I've had mortar rounds for Final Protective Fires walking back toward us due to baseplates digging into softer ground. We had to leave our positions, which kind of defeats the purpose of FPF!

And there's a way around that. Even though it's inaccurate, if you have an observer, pop a round out there in the general area and adjust from that. As long as your observer can spot your round, he should be able to adjust to the target. You just need to know the direction he sees the target at compared to the mortars' direction. 

This is all real life, not necessarily what happens in game

Sorry I'm not familiar with the unsafe for German halftracks, or Russians either. Maybe someone else is?

Dave

 

[Dr.Fusselpulli]

Yeah... they are so inaccurate, they are nearly useless. Effective point fire is spreading around a radius of about 700m around the target. That's pointless. I hope it will be fixed with the V5 update. I especially see this in cold war, with mortars that can't be dismounted from the M113.

Edited September 29 by Dr.Fusselpulli

[StieliAlpha]

On 9/24/2024 at 1:04 AM, Dynaman216 said:

If anything mortars in a halftrack should be more accurate since the firing platform is more stable over a longer time frame.  Setting them up may (or may not) take longer since the vehicle may have to move a bit.

I am not so sure about the stable fire platform. I would think that „soft“ factors, as the vehicle’s suspensions, tires, tire pressure, etc have a big negative impact. But for a proper judgement one need would to look deeply into the technical details.

[chuckdyke]

42 minutes ago, StieliAlpha said:

I would think that „soft“ factors,

It depends how they model 

[StieliAlpha]

16 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

It depends how they model 

Not really. If the „mortar-halftrack arrangement“ is „by design“ less accurate than a stationary mortar, one should see the same difference in the games models.

I thought a little further about the technical side.

To have a stable platform, the vehicle would need to be heavy. Not a very practical solution. Or be placed on a heavy foundation (e.g., concrete slabs), jacked up to compensate the vehicles „softness“, levelled and tied down to the foundation. Basically the same setup as for a big mobile crane. That sounds feasible for prepared off-board fire positions, but certainly not for the CM on-board half tracks. Ergo, I dare to say they should have a low “base accuracy”.

But looking on the other side: The frame of a 50mm mortar does not look very rigid either. Placing it hastily under battlefield conditions on soft ground, is certainly not ideal and will create some accuracy issues, too.

As so often: One would need to decide what exactly we want to compare.

[chuckdyke]

56 minutes ago, StieliAlpha said:

one should see the same difference in the games models.

or we don't see a difference. only way is to test it and share your findings. I found under game conditions we still have some spotting rounds like we do as if they were off the map. I play mostly Soviet WW2 only in the 2nd turn we see some proper effects. For the 81 mm I target light and when I see the desired effect I open up with all of the battery. Interesting or we see a similar case with German or Western Allied units. BTW it is also the case with the SU76 and as they can fire smoke I use that as the targeting rounds. 

[Erwin]

4 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

For the 81 mm I target light and when I see the desired effect I open up with all of the battery.

I recall reading that (in the game) each mortar has to do its own spotting rounds b4 FFE.  So, doesn't that take a lot of time and waste ammo?

[PEB14]

5 hours ago, Erwin said:

I recall reading that (in the game) each mortar has to do its own spotting rounds b4 FFE.

I think so.

[chuckdyke]

7 hours ago, Erwin said:

I recall reading that (in the game) each mortar has to do its own spotting rounds b4 FFE.  So, doesn't that take a lot of time and waste ammo?

Target light till they are on target and then do like in a mission fire for effect. On map you do it manually. With the SU Guns I let the HQ's do the firing initially till his subunits fire. In the game it is effective. On map mortars too, I found going through the fire control centre is ineffective and a waste of ammo. 

[Dynaman216]

16 hours ago, StieliAlpha said:

I am not so sure about the stable fire platform. I would think that „soft“ factors, as the vehicle’s suspensions, tires, tire pressure, etc have a big negative impact. But for a proper judgement one need would to look deeply into the technical details.

The mortar is (nearly) over the tracks so the tires should have very little to do with it.  Moreso if firing "forwards" since the recoil would go toward the tracks - if the thing can fire towards the back of the HT then tires would matter.  The tracks also have a much larger surface area then the mortar baseplates on their own so the recoil would take more time to put the thing off angle from the recoil pushing the mortar into the ground.  

For either setup (on HT or on ground) a pre-setup (before scenario setup) should be the most accurate and quick to get on target since they would have been calibrated/setup earlier but I have no idea if the game models that.

Edited October 1 by Dynaman216

[Erwin]

59 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Target light till they are on target and then do like in a mission fire for effect.

Each on map mortar has to fire spotting rounds for its own tube.  One cannot fire one onmap mortar and then have any other mortars (in its formation and close by) use the same coordinates like one can in RL.  Hence my comment that one can waste ammo if multiple onmap mortars are firing spotting rounds and trying to fire at the same target.  

[chuckdyke]

25 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Hence my comment that one can waste ammo if multiple onmap mortars are firing spotting rounds and trying to fire at the same target.  

My experience was as follows. FR Mountains of the Moon. Battery of Mortars each had a direct LOF but wear just out of LOS of the German Defenders. IMHO I think tactically how they should be deployed, without the fire direction centre. They were very effective, Western Allies and the Germans can deploy further away and you probably use different tactics. I use the mortars as Soviet less than 400 meters from their LOF. Topic was Mortars in Halftracks. Tactically they can redeploy quicker but it may cost them accuracy. 

Edited October 1 by chuckdyke